Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Shoots To Thrill

There’s something obnoxious and off-putting about the string of superlatives Activision uses to hype Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Worse, the publisher even used OVERSIZED, BOLD-FACED ALL CAPS on the game box to hammer home what a juggernaut it thinks it has produced.

But it’s not hype if you can walk the walk as well as you talk the talk. Everything about this game, released Tuesday for the Xbox 360, PS3, Nintendo Wii, PC and Nintendo DS is superlative. You might note the double-billing of Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games as developers. That was due to some awkward legal wranglings between Activision and Infinity Ward that led to some departures and defections and required a save from Sledgehammer et al. It matters not a whit, though, as this game is better in every way than all other first-person shooters I’ve played. I played the Xbox version for this review.

MW3 is a both a sequel and upgrade to 2009’s Modern Warfare 2 game and looks and plays better than last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, developed by Treyarch. And, though I prefer understated underdogs and have tended to favor the rival Battlefield series from Electronic Arts, I have to give MW3 the nod for the best FPS game of the year.

Like nearly all games of this genre, the plot is muddled, convoluted and just plain dumb in spots. There’s a half-hearted effort at character development, because someone once decreed that all FPS games must have attempts at James Cameron-esque cinematic interludes between missions. After watching MW3’s wannabe big-screen sequences and seeing how close we are to December 31, I can safely say that we will not see convergence of Hollywood movies and video games for at least the rest of this year.

MW3 at least has some continuity from its predecessor, MW2, reintroducing familiar characters, like Captain Soap MacTavish, SAS Captain John Price and Russian bad guy Vladimir Makarov. You also get some new characters, including Delta Force’s Frost Westbrook and Yuri, formerly of the Spetsnaz, now a conflicted Russian trying to figure out whether to love his country or take down its crazy leader.

In a few words, MW3’s backstory picks up where MW2’s left off. The Russians must be beaten back from their American invasion, with the first campaign mission aimed at driving them out of New York by Westbrook and his Delta Force team. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, after killing General Shepherd in the previous game, Soap is critically wounded and is evacuated by Price and other colleagues to what’s supposed to be a safe place in India. Wrong. Makarov was one step ahead, sending in his boys to take out the remnants of Task Force 141. After shooting it out as Yuri, the 141 team tracks Makarov to Africa, where he acquires chemical weapons that are headed to Paris, Berlin and London.

I’ll avoid giving away too much more, other than to say that your overarching mission in single-player mode is to stop Makarov’s madness and take the man out, ensuring détente, if not outright peace, between Russia and the U.S.

Despite the plodding backstory, MW3’s campaign mode rocks, putting Battlefield 3’s to shame. In just the first 20 minutes of campaign mode, there are some seriously fun and exciting nail-biting moments. For example, right after knocking out the Russian’s rooftop signal jammer atop the NYSE, I (played by Frost Westbrook) whipped out my trusty briefcase and used a Predator drone to take out an attacking helicopter. Moments later, I was aboard a Blackhawk, strafing attacking Russian choppers as the door gunner. And then, I was scuba-ing my way through the flooded Battery Tunnel to disable a Russian submarine, avoiding mines. When I completed a missile launch mission, I jumped into a speedboat on the Hudson to head to my extraction point. Meanwhile, back in India, I (Yuri) took charge of a heavily armored, kick-ass UAV robot to clear a path to the chopper so Soap could be airlifted to safety.

The list could go on, but I want to avoid further spoilers. Single-player mode, alone, makes this game worth the $59 or so retail price.

Mission objectives are very straightforward, and it’s a lot easier to figure out what to do, where to go and who to follow than in Battlefield 3. My one criticism about campaign mode is it’s a bit annoying and confusing to jump around from first-person shooter protagonist to first-person shooter protagonist and around the globe.

I was impressed by the real locales and level of detail depicting them in this game. MW2 looked pretty authentic, but it might as well have slapped the generic label on most of its battlegrounds. Not so in MW3, where I found myself actually looking out for dog poop on the sidewalks of Paris while I scanned the street signs and marveled at the cobblestones and barred windows of buildings. The inside of a German shopping mall is spot-on, and in this era of financial crisis, could it be any more fitting than to run through the ruins of the New York Stock Exchange?

Graphics are sharp and clear, and it’s a lot easier to tell who’s on your team in multiplayer mode than in Battlefield 3.

Speaking of multiplayer mode, it’s also excellent. It’s very much like MW2’s, but with a couple of evolutionary additions. Special Ops can be played solo, with friends or other gamers online, require you to carry out various missions, like hijacking Russian leader Vorshevsky’s airplane or honing your aiming skills while going through an obstacle course. It’s very easy to just jump right into the missions via “find match” or “private match” modes.

The one wrinkle to MW3 is the “Elite” mode, which has caused no shortage of debate among gamers about whether game publishers and developers have become greedy, or are getting way ahead of the curve. There’s a free version of Elite that lets you tap leaderboards, but the ultimate goal is to get players who just shelled out nearly 60 bucks for the game to pay another $49.99 a year for downloadable add-on content like competitions and strategies. It will be intriguing to see how well MW Elite does, if Beachhead Studios and others involved even break out and share the subscriber numbers.

There are tons of options in multiplayer mode, though it looks pretty much like what was on offer in MW2. Six-on-six team deathmatches seem to be the game of choice for teenagers like my son, with kills and deaths tallied up like win-loss records. The “gun game” is back, letting you add to your arsenal with each kill, or drop back a level if you’re knifed to death by an opponent. “Juggernaut,” or all-versus-one, mode is a thrill, as is the “team juggernaut” mode, where team members need to protect one designated member from being killed.

I do want to mention the “kill confirmed” and “team defender” modes, which are new to multiplayer. The former requires you to pick up the dog tags of those you kill before your opponents do. The latter pits you and the opposing team in a competition to snatch the flag of the first person killed in the game.

Maps are varied, both in location and size, with a good blend of small maps for quick kills and bigger ones that require more strategy and fewer reflexive twitches of the trigger finger.

As you’ve come to love and expect in the MW series, guns and accoutrements abound. You have your choice among dozens of handguns, machine pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles and shotguns. Grenades of all kinds are in this game and can be picked up, won or accumulated, along with special mix-and-match gun sights too numerous to detail here. You’ll also find the usual emblems, clans and the like as you build up your status and form your multiplayer community.

There are some changes to the killstreak system from MW2, and I haven’t played the game enough yet to determine if it’s just a coat of fresh paint via a name change or a true revamp. For one, killstreaks are now called “pointstreaks.” You accrue points for each mission you accomplish and can get rewards for those points. Rewards come in so-called “strike packages.” Those perks are grouped as “assault,” “specialist” or “support.” Essentially, the better you get, the more perks you can get, things like equipment or traits (like staying cool and steady with your aim while under fire) that make you a better soldier.

Controls are extremely easy to learn if you’re a newbie and are pretty much the same as in MW2.

On a side note, while game releases are usually very tightly controlled by publishers, MW3 appears to have leaked out early in various forms. I saw stories claiming console versions of the game were put up for sale on auction site eBay for well over $1,000.

I know impassioned Battlefield 3 fans won’t be swayed or converted by this or any other MW3 review, but I do think the new Activision game, with its strong single-player and continued excellent online and multiplayer modes is more well-rounded and is a more-complete game for the money, if you’re only going to buy one FPS game this season. As I noted in my Battlefield 3 review, the game is also excellent, and with both out, if you’re on the fence, do try a side-by-side comparison in the store before buying.

MW2 sold over 20 million copies, and Black Ops sold over 25 million. I wouldn’t be surprised, as we head into the holiday season and through to next year, and maybe with the addition of downloadable content via MW Elite, to see this last in the latest game in the Modern Warfare trilogy top both those marks.